tbuckley/cabot-search huggingface dataset:
When radical uncertainty is too much: Clinical aspects of Conviction Narrative Theory
Authors: Omer Linkovski, Renana Eitan
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract We propose extrapolating Conviction Narrative Theory (CNT) to clinical psychology and psychiatry. We demonstrate how CNT principles may benefit assessment, therapy, and possibly even modify public health views of neuropsychiatric disorders. Our commentary focuses on hoarding disorder as a model, elaborates on discrepancies in the scientific literature and suggests how the CNT may resolve them.
Adaptive narratives and fantastical falsehoods?
Authors: Aaron D. Lightner
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Johnson et al. make a strong case for Conviction Narrative Theory, but it remains unclear why so many adaptive narratives include supernatural causes and other falsehoods. Focusing on religions, I argue that an adaptive decision-making system might include supernatural falsehoods because they simplify complex problems, they are sensitive to long-term incentives, and they evoke strong emotions in a communicative context.
Narratives of crisis: From affective structures to adaptive functions
Authors: Petra Pelletier, Cécile McLaughlin, Magali Boespflug
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract This commentary focuses on affective structures and the main adaptive functions of shared narratives to fill the gaps of the Conviction Narrative Theory. The transmission of narratives among individuals in highly uncertain situations is irrevocably tainted by affects and anchored in collective memory. Narratives have important evolutionary functions for human beings under threat and act as the social glue that creates and strengthens social bonds among individuals.
What makes narratives feel right? The role of metacognitive experiences
Authors: Norbert Schwarz
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Conviction Narrative Theory holds that reasoners adopt “a narrative that feels ‘right’ to explain the available data” and use “that narrative to imagine plausible futures” (target article, Abstract). Drawing on feelings-as-information theory, this commentary reviews the role of metacognitive experiences of ease or difficulty and highlights that fluently processed narratives are more likely to “feel right.”
Making the unconscious conscious: Developing maladaptive scripts into conviction narratives
Authors: Paul Siegel
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract In his ‘script theory,' Tomkins first proposed that people unconsciously organize their life experiences in terms of narrative structures he termed “scripts.” I use a clinical vignette to illustrate how the psychotherapeutic process of “making the unconscious conscious” involves becoming aware of the maladaptive scripts that people unwittingly live by, and developing them into the “conviction narratives” proposed by the authors.
The wisdom in the story: Clarifying assumptions about radical uncertainty and reasonableness in narrative judgment
Authors: Igor Grossmann, Ethan A. Meyers, Richard P. Eibach
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Human lives are radically uncertain. Making sense of such uncertainties is the hallmark of wisdom. Sense-making requires narratives, putting them in the center stage of human everyday decision-making. Yet what if radical uncertainty is a narrative itself? Moreover, do laypeople always consider such narratives irrational? Here we pose these questions to enrich a theory of choice under uncertainty.
Narratives, probabilities, and the currency of thought
Authors: Samuel G. B. Johnson, Avri Bilovich, David Tuckett
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Whereas most commentators agree about the centrality of narratives in decision-making, the commentaries revealed little consensus about the nature of radical uncertainty. Here we consider thirteen objections to our views, including our characterization of the uncertain decision environment and associated cognitive, affective, and social processes. We conclude that under radical uncertainty, narratives rather than probabilities are the currency of thought.
Conviction Narrative Theory and the Theory of Narrative Thought
Authors: Lee Roy Beach, James A. Wise
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Conviction Narrative Theory bears a close resemblance to the Theory of Narrative Thought, although the two were designed to address different questions. In this commentary, we detail some of the more pronounced similarities and differences and suggest that resolving the latter could produce a third theory of narrative cognition that is superior to either of these two.
Narratives need not end well; nor say it all
Authors: Sara Andreetta, Davide Spalla, Alessandro Treves
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract To fully embrace situations of radical uncertainty, we argue that the theory should abandon the requirements that narratives, in general, must lead to affective evaluation , and that they have to explain (and potentially simulate ) all or even the bulk of the current decisional context. Evidence from studies of incidental learning show that narrative schemata can bias decisions while remaining fragmentary, insufficient for prediction, and devoid of utility values.
Epistemic trust and unchanging personal narratives
Authors: Chloe Campbell, Peter Fonagy
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Focusing on imagination and the social context in the generation of conviction narratives, we propose that these elements are dynamically related to one another, and crucially that it is the nature of this relationship that determines individuals' level of epistemic openness and capacity to respond adaptively to update their narratives in a way that increases the possibility of more successful decision-making.
Narrative as cultural attractor
Authors: James Holland Jones, Calder Hilde-Jones
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

By structuring information in a systematic relational framework, narratives are cultural attractors that are particularly well-suited for transmission. The relational structure of narrative is partly what communicates causality, but this structure also complicates both transmission and selection on cultural elements by introducing correlations among narrative elements and between different narratives. These correlations have implications for adaptation, complexity, and robustness.
High-stakes decisions do not require narrative conviction but narrative flexibility
Authors: Fritz Breithaupt, Milo Hicks, Benjamin Hiskes, Victoria Lagrange
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract We challenge Johnson et al.'s assumption that people reduce unclear situations to a single narrative explanation and that such reduction would be adaptive for decision-making under radical uncertainty. Instead, we argue that people imagine and maintain multiple narrative possibilities throughout the decision-making process and that this process provides cognitive flexibility and adaptive benefits within the proposed model.
Narratives, environments, and decision-making: A fascinating narrative, but one to be completed
Authors: Julian N. Marewski
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

I encourage Johnson et al. to ground Conviction Narrative Theory in more detail in foundational, earlier decision-making research - first and foremost in Herbert Simon's work. Moreover, I wonder if and how further reflections about narratives could aid tackling two interrelated grand challenges of the decision sciences: To describe decision-making environments; to understand how people select among decision-strategies in environments.
Hierarchical Bayesian narrative-making under variable uncertainty
Authors: Alex Jinich-Diamant, Leonardo Christov-Moore
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

While Conviction Narrative Theory correctly criticizes utility-based accounts of decision-making, it unfairly reduces probabilistic models to point estimates and treats affect and narrative as mechanistically opaque yet explanatorily sufficient modules. Hierarchically nested Bayesian accounts offer a mechanistically explicit and parsimonious alternative incorporating affect into a single biologically plausible precision-weighted mechanism that tunes decision-making toward narrative versus sensory dependence under varying uncertainty levels.
The ephemeral stories of our lives
Authors: Nick Chater
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Johnson et al. make a persuasive case that qualitative, story-like reasoning plays a crucial role in everyday thought and decision-making. This commentary questions the cohesiveness of this type of reasoning and the representations that generate it. Perhaps narratives do not underpin, but are ephemeral products of thought, created when we need to justify our actions to ourselves and others.
Is Conviction Narrative Theory a theory of everything or nothing?
Authors: Ben R. Newell, Aba Szollosi
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

We connect Conviction Narrative Theory to an account that views people as intuitive scientists who can flexibly create, evaluate, and modify representations of decision problems. We argue that without understanding how the relevant complex narratives (or indeed any representation, simple to complex) are themselves constructed, we also cannot know when and why people would rely on them to make choices.
The small world's problem is everyone's problem, not a reason to favor CNT over probabilistic decision theory
Authors: Daniel Greco
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract The case for the superiority of Conviction Narrative Theory (CNT) over probabilistic approaches rests on selective employment of a double standard. The authors judge probabilistic approaches inadequate for failing to apply to “grand-world” decision problems, while they praise CNT for its treatment of “small-world” decision problems. When both approaches are held to the same standard, the comparative question is murkier.
Really radical?
Authors: Karl Friston
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract I enjoyed reading this compelling account of Conviction Narrative Theory (CNT). As a theoretical neurobiologist, I recognised – and applauded – the tenets of CNT. My commentary asks whether its claims could be installed into a Bayesian mechanics of decision-making, in a way that would enable theoreticians to model, reproduce and predict decision-making.
How do narratives relate to heuristics?
Authors: Gerd Gigerenzer
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Narratives and heuristics are both tools for dealing with uncertainty, intractability, and incommensurability, that is, for all real-world situations outside the domain of Bayesian decision theory. But how do narratives and heuristics relate? I suggest two links: Heuristics select narratives to explain events, and “big” narratives select the heuristics that people live by, to execute their values and moral principles.
The statistical mechanics of felt uncertainty under active inference
Authors: Mark Solms
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Convincing narratives are not confabulations. Presumably they “feel right” to decision-making agents because the probabilities they assign intuitively (i.e., implicitly) to potential outcomes are plausible. Can we render explicit the calculations that would be performed by a decision-making agent to evaluate the plausibility of competing narratives? And if we can, what, exactly, makes a narrative “feel right” to an agent?
Fear signals vulnerability and appeasement, not threat
Authors: Abigail A. Marsh
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Humans are not only fearful apes, but we also communicate our fear using social cues. Social fear displays typically elicit care and assistance in the real world and the lab. But in the psychology and neuroscience literature fearful expressions are commonly interpreted as “threat cues.” The fearful ape hypothesis suggests that fearful expressions should be instead considered appeasement and vulnerability cues.
Extending and refining the fearful ape hypothesis
Authors: Tobias Grossmann
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

The fearful ape hypothesis (FAH) presents an evolutionary-developmental framework stipulating that in the context of cooperative caregiving, unique to human great ape group life, heightened fearfulness was adaptive. This is because from early in human ontogeny fearfulness expressed and perceived enhanced care-based responding and cooperation with mothers and others. This response extends and refines the FAH by incorporating the commentaries' suggestions and additional lines of empirical work, providing a more comprehensive and nuanced version of the FAH. Specifically, it encourages and hopes to inspire cross-species and cross-cultural, longitudinal work elucidating evolutionary and developmental functions of fear in context. Beyond fear, it can be seen as a call for an evolutionary-developmental approach to affective science.
The adaptiveness of fear (and other emotions) considered more broadly: Missed literature on the nature of emotions and its functions
Authors: Margaret S. Clark, Chance Adkins, Jennifer Hirsch, Hannah S. Elizabeth, Noah T. Reed
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract We agree with Grossmann that fear often builds cooperative relationships. Yet he neglects much extant literature. Prior researchers have discussed how fear (and other emotions) build cooperative relationships, have questioned whether fear per se evolved to serve this purpose, and have emphasized that human cooperation takes many forms. Grossmann's theory would benefit from a wider consideration of this work.
More than fear: Contributions of biobehavioral synchrony and infants' reactivity to cooperative care
Authors: Elizabeth B daSilva, Bennett I Bertenthal
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract We present two challenges to the fearful ape hypothesis : (1) biobehavioral synchrony precedes and moderates the effects of fear on cooperative care, and (2) cooperative care emerges in a more bidirectional manner than Grossmann acknowledges. We present evidence demonstrating how dyadic differences in co-regulation and individual differences in infants' reactivity shape caregivers' responses to infant affect.
Heightened fearfulness as a developmental adaptation
Authors: David F. Bjorklund, Carlos Hernández Blasi
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Although we find many merits to Grossmann's fearful ape hypothesis, unlike Grossmann, we see heightened fearfulness as an ontogenetic adaptation, signaling helplessness and fostering caregiving during infancy, which subsequently became exapted to promote cooperation. We also argue that, rather than being the “breeding ground” for enhanced infant fearfulness, cooperative care is more likely the evolved product of enhanced fearfulness.
Are we virtuously caring or just anxious?
Authors: Charlie Kurth
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract According to Grossmann, the high levels of cooperation seen in humans are the result of a “virtuous caring cycle” on which the increased care that more fearful children receive brings increased cooperative tendencies in those children. But this proposal overlooks an equally well supported alternative on which children's anxiety – not a virtuous caring cycle – explains the cooperative tendencies of humans.
Fearful apes, happy apes: Is fearfulness associated with uniquely human cooperation?
Authors: Christopher Riddell, Mariska Kret, Tonko Zijlstra, Milica Nikolic
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract In the fearful ape hypothesis, Grossmann argues that heightened fearfulness increases human-unique cooperation. We suggest that this conclusion, however, may be premature. In particular, we question Grossmann's singling out of fear as the affective trait that enhances cooperative care. Additionally, we problematize the extent to which heightened fearfulness in humans, and its association with human-unique cooperation, are supported empirically.
Fearfulness: An important addition to the starter kit for distinctively human minds
Authors: Dominic M. Dwyer, Cecilia Heyes
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Grossmann's impressive article indicates that - along with attentional biases, expansion of domain-general processes of learning and memory, and other temperamental tweaks - heightened fearfulness is part of the genetic starter kit for distinctively human minds. The learned matching account of emotional contagion explains how heightened fearfulness could have promoted the development of caring and cooperation in our species.
The dark side of fear expression: Infant crying as a trigger for maladaptive parental responses
Authors: Christine E Parsons, Joshua C Skewes
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract While infant fearfulness, and its expression via crying, may have been adaptive in our evolutionary history, for modern parents, crying can be challenging to respond to. We discuss how and why prolonged crying can raise the risk for difficulties with adult care. Given that crying is the most-reported trigger for shaking, its potential to elicit maladaptive responses should not be overlooked.
The human fear paradox turns out to be less paradoxical when global changes in human aggression and language evolution are considered
Authors: Antonio Benítez-Burraco, Ljiljana Progovac
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Our commentary focuses on the interaction between Grossmann's fearful ape hypothesis (FAH) and the human self-domestication hypothesis (HSDH), also taking into account language acquisition and evolution. Although there is considerable overlap between the two hypotheses, there are also some discrepancies, and our goal is to consider the extent to which HSDH can explain the phenomena identified by FAH without invoking fearfulness as directly adaptive.
We aren't especially fearful apes, and fearful apes aren't especially prosocial
Authors: Raechel Drew, Enda Tan, Francis Yuen, J Kiley Hamlin
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Grossmann posits that heightened fearfulness in humans evolved to facilitate cooperative caregiving. We argue that three of his claims – that children express more fear than other apes, that they are uniquely responsive to fearful expressions, and that expression and perception of fear are linked with prosocial behaviors – are inconsistent with existing literature or require additional supporting evidence.
Cultural evolution needed to complete the Grossmann theory
Authors: Shinobu Kitayama, Amelie Rossmaier
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Grossmann used evolutionary analysis to argue for the adaptive nature of fearfulness. This analysis, however, falls short of addressing why negative affectivity is maladaptive in contemporary Western societies. Here, we fill the gap by documenting the implied cultural variation and considering cultural (rather than biological) evolution over the last 10,000 years to explain the observed cultural variation.
The power of the weak: When altruism is the equilibrium
Authors: Rachel Barkan, Yaron Lahav
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract A rational economic analysis complements Grossmann's fearful ape hypothesis. Two examples of mixed-motive games with strong inter-dependence (i.e., weak chirping nestling, boxed pigs) demonstrate that signaling weakness is a dominant strategy. Weakness elicits cooperative, caring response, comprising the equilibrium of the game. In extensive form, a reliable reputation of weakness elicits caring as a sequential equilibrium.
Conceptualization, context, and comparison are key to understanding the evolution of fear
Authors: Jacob C Dunn, Rachael Miller, Krishna Balasubramaniam, Çağlar Akçay, Claudia A F Wascher
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract The fearful ape hypothesis proposes that heightened fearfulness in humans is adaptive. However, despite its attractive anthropocentric narrative, the evidence presented for greater fearfulness in humans versus other apes is not sufficient to support this claim. Conceptualization, context, and comparison are strongly lacking in Grossmann's proposal, but are key to understanding variation in the fear response among individuals and species.
Beyond the fearful ape hypothesis: Humans are also supplicating and appeasing apes
Authors: Eric J. Mercadante, Zachary Witkower, Ian Hohm, Jessica L. Tracy
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract We review research suggesting that several of the functions attributed to fear, in the target article's fearful ape hypothesis, also apply to supplication and appeasement emotions. These emotions facilitate support provisioning from others and the formation and maintenance of cooperative relationships. We therefore propose that the fearful ape hypothesis be expanded to include several other distinctively human emotional tendencies.
Fearful apes or nervous goats? Another look at functions of dispositions or traits
Authors: Vladimir Krstić
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract In his article, Grossmann argues that, in the context of human cooperative caregiving, heightened fearfulness in children and human sensitivity to fear in others are adaptive traits. I offer and briefly defend a rival hypothesis: Heightened fearfulness among infants and young children is a maladaptive trait that did not get deselected in the process of evolution because human sensitivity to fear in others mitigates its disadvantageous effects to a sufficient extent.
How “peer-fear” of others' evaluations can regulate young children's cooperation
Authors: Robert Hepach, Stella Claire Gerdemann
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Children's cooperation with peers undergoes substantial developmental changes between 3 and 10 years of age. Here we stipulate that young children's initial fearfulness of peers' behaviour develops into older children's fearfulness of peers' evaluations of their own behaviour. Cooperation may constitute an adaptive environment in which the expressions of fear and self-conscious emotions regulate the quality of children's peer relationships.
Cooperative care as origins of the “happy ape”?
Authors: Fan Yang
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Grossmann proposes an interesting framework to explain how heightened fearfulness among humans could be evolutionarily adaptive in the context of cooperative care. I would like to propose that cooperative care may also be a potential mechanism promoting enhanced happiness expression among humans, shedding light on questions about the scope and boundary of the fearful ape hypothesis.
The suffering ape hypothesis
Authors: Leander Steinkopf
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract The “fearful ape hypothesis” could be regarded as one aspect of a more general “suffering ape hypothesis”: Humans are more likely to experience negative emotions (e.g., fear, sadness), aversive symptoms (e.g., pain, fever), and to engage in self-harming behavior (e.g., cutting, suicide attempts) because these might motivate affiliative, consolatory, and supportive behavior from their prosocial environment thereby enhancing evolutionary fitness.
Heightened fearfulness in infants is not adaptive
Authors: Marissa Ogren, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Katie Hoemann, Vanessa LoBue
Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

Abstract Grossmann proposes the “fearful ape hypothesis,” suggesting that heightened fearfulness in early life is evolutionarily adaptive. We question this claim with evidence that (1) perceived fearfulness in children is associated with negative, not positive long-term outcomes; (2) caregivers are responsive to all affective behaviors, not just those perceived as fearful; and (3) caregiver responsiveness serves to reduce perceived fearfulness.